Bible Broadcast

It was a bold decision by the BBC to broadcast the whole of the Book of Psalms over the Easter weekend. I wonder what led to it. I only heard one chunk, as the beautifully orotund voice of Jeremy Irons rolled its way around these ancient words, filtered through the vocabulary of King James I's committee of translators. 

The programme had taken the decision for Mr Irons to read the word selah every time it occurs, and although this put him in the company of Diamanda Galás who also does the same when she uses Psalmic texts it is nevertheless a bit weird as nobody really knows what selah means. It's probably a musical instruction ('pause for reflection', the Amplified Bible renders it) and could mean anything from 'rest here' to 'play a twiddly bit'. Solemnly reading it out is like all the musicians in an orchestra shouting DIMINUENDO when it appears in the score, and hearing Mr Irons trying to invest it with some emotional content is bizarre.

In fact the whole exercise was slightly bizarre. It is true that the Psalms contain 'some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible' and 'a whole range of human emotion', but when they are recited in church they are smoothed by plainchant or Anglican chant, or just read at some distance from the feeling they are trying to embody, quite flatly. Reading them with the emotion put back in, acting them, sounds most odd, especially when what you're reading is the language of the Authorised Version, heightened and unfamiliar at this distance of four centuries. As Jeremy Irons all but gnashes his teeth and weeps his way through these ancient texts, they sound all too often like the ravings of someone not-quite-hinged.